My 1000th post....a funny workplace related story.

DublinWriter

So anyways just before last Christmas, I’d arranged to pick a friend of mine up for lunch from the big American IT multinational she works at in Blanchardstown. I won’t mention the name of the company for obvious reasons. Let’s call them Mega-corp for the sake of this story.

I’d arranged to pick her up at 1pm, I arrive a little early, even though I’m only picking her up from reception they still make me sign in as a visitor.

It’s all very high-tech, and I have to use a cumbersome touch-screen type thing to type my name in and sign one of those tablet things etc etc.

So I get the badge and proceed to wait.

About 10 minutes later, a taxi pulls up and a man and a woman get out with a massive amount of wheely-type luggage.

They come in, talking in very loud American accents, and proceed to the reception area.

American #1: “Oh, hi, we’re from the London office of Mega-Corp and we’re here to do a little work, is there some office we can use?”

Recpetionist: “You’re meeting someone here?”

American #2: “No, the London office said we could hang out here for a while”

Receptionist: “But I can’t let you gain access if you’re not here so see someone”

American #1: “But Randy from the LA office said that we could just come out here for a while”

Receptionist: “But if you’re not here to see anyone specific, I can’t let you in, we have very strict Health and Safety regulations in case of a fire”

And so it went for at least 10 minutes with the Americans getting more irritated by the minute and the receptionist standing firm. Turns out that they are just fresh from the Airport. She’s not letting them in, despite what Randy in the LA office promised.

Eventually to two Americans storm out in a huff, almost crashing through the main entrance swing doors and are back out on the street. As Blanchardstown Industrial estate isn’t exactly downtown Manhattan, they wait at least ten minutes outside to try and hail a cab, then I watch them desperately give up and walk away, with their massive wheely-luggage in tow.

Now either this was a botched piece of industrial espionage or were the two Americans as dumb and arrogant as they really seemed to be? I’ve worked for plenty of ‘Mega-Corps’ in Ireland over the years, but I seriously wouldn’t suddenly just land at the Brussels office and demand an office!

My friend arrived at 1pm, I went through the Mega-corp’s official visitor signing out procedure and we laughed about it over lunch.

It reminded me of one of those gold-nuggets of advice you get from time to time. I used to work for a big American Pharmaceutical company and the HR Director was my boss. He once said to me that if you really want to know what a company is like to work for, and how screwed up it is or not, just wait 15 minutes in the reception area.

TempestSabre

They may have been lacking in organisation skills. But she sounds like a jobsworth. Some initative in finding out more about them and helping reach a compromise might have been a better route.